The main problem with nuclear power plants isn’t the radiation or the waste or the risk of accident. It’s that they cost so damn much they’re rarely profitable, especially in open electricity markets. 70-80% of the cost of the electricity is building the plant, and without low interest rates and a guaranteed rate when finished it doesn’t make economic sense to build them.
The latest nuclear plant in the US is in Georgia and is $17 billion over budget and seven years later than expected.
It’s that they cost so damn much
The cost of continued fossil fuel use is far higher.
rarely profitable
Profit should not be the motivation of preventing our climate disaster from getting worse. If the private sector isn’t able to handle it, then the government needs to do so itself.
And besides, the only reason fossil fuels are so competitive is because we are dumping billions of dollars in subsidies for them. Those subsidies should instead go towards things that aren’t killing the planet.
Would it be better to dump billions into nuclear power plants that won’t come online for a decade at least, or to dump billions into renewables that can be online and reducing emissions in under a year?
We should worldwide be putting trillions into both. Renewables should be first priority, but not all locations have good solar, wind, and battery options.
You cannot run the entire grid on entirely renewable. We physically don’t have enough lithium in the world to make the batteries for it, and even if you don’t use lithium there would be untold ecological destruction to extract the rare earths.
Renewable and hydroelectric is a solution but not viable everywhere and hydro also causes massive ecological destruction
Nuclear plants are immensely profitable, just not on time scales politicians are interested in. You’re deep in the red for 10-20 years and then after that it prints money
So after 10-20 years of construction and cost overruns and 10-20 years of operating at a loss you start making money.
And that’s assuming electricity rates don’t drop in that time. Which they are as renewables get deployed more and more because they don’t go 100% over budget in time and money.
If we get started building nuclear power plants now, how much will storage and transmission tech improve before they’re even completed, let alone profitable?
It’s not 10-20 years of construction AND 10-20 years at a loss, it’s 10-20 years of construction at a loss. Not great, but up to 40 years as you suggest sounds a lot worse because it’s a misrepresentation.
